Happiness of Pursuit.

OWNED BY TAYLOR SWIFT It has always been ours.

Check out this interesting theory from tiktok about IBYTAM MV. i'm down with it!

Here are this fan's main talking points:

1- the underlying point of the video is not about a relationship 10y ago

2- it's about her battle with scott borchetta and miles teller is reminiscent of a young SB

3- cake represents first five albums (eligible to be rerecorded)

4 - represents you 'can't have your cake and eat it too' (own my masters against my will AND profit from them) - and that's why she takes a swipe out of the 2nd layer of the cake - she's taken away some of the profits of fearless with fearless tv - and she has no regrets about doing that

5 - the tiktok doesn't mention it but the seagulls are on the fifth tier (=1989) (he does a deep dive on the cake in a separate vid)

6- he doesn't mention it but here are a few worthy subtle connections: (1) miles doesnt see himself in the mirror, he sees taylor. Why? because scott would not be himself/who he is if not for taylor. She drove that label/him to success. He can't see himself today, without the imprint of taylor on his life. (2) she is talking at the wedding; he is rolling his eyes (3) he can't get to her now, (he keeps trying to get to her at the wedding) because she is off doing her own thing, and having a good time too

7 - the spotlight starts on taylor and miles at the first dance. At first it seems like they are a team - he takes her hand, she takes his, they have a moment where they are on the same page. Because at first, they were. But then she walks away and leaves him, her dress changes from white to red, blood is shed (blood on the cake) and despite that she is still singing.. now she has her new partners - aaron, jack, who are behind her (literally and figuratively) - and she is still doing just fine. And she knows he thinks about her, because she's still finding success. And though he is still watching, but he can't touch her, he can't have her.

8- the scene with the kids shows how taylor has a huge influence on kids = her fans (author doesnt mention this but: her 'fans' (the kids) follow her every move, will always support her, want to learn from her, dont pay attention to the rest of the stuff around them, just her, what she's teaching them, they really connect

9- (he doesnt mention this but) in the end it is just him, now alone in the bathroom, by himself, and he realizes he has lost her while she is off painting the town red

All’s well that ends well to end up with you - LOVER // They say all’s well that ends well, but I’m in a new hell - ALL TOO WELL (10 minute version)

Bonus:

But then he watched me watch the front door all night, willing you to come TAYLOR SWIFT - ALL TOO WELL (LIVE ON SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE)

sacred prayer and we’d swear to remember it all too well

HAPPY FOUR YEARS OF REPUTATION! - Taylor Swift (November 10, 2017)

there will be no further explanation. there will just be reputation.

Taylor Swift + escape love story // run (ft. ed sheeran) // wildest dreams // I know places // call it what you want // miss americana & the heartbreak prince // seven // the lakes

Taylor Swift - Mine // Taylor Swift  - All Too Well: The Short Film

the key difference between Fearless TV and RED TV is that while the Fearless vault tracks were beautiful and creatively insightful, they didn’t recontextualise the narrative of that album at all. Fearless has a less definitive mythology than RED - new additions have a weaker effect altering the overall album - whereas RED, whose settings and characters and storyline have always been crystal clear, is pretty fundamentally changed by the vault tracks.

RED is a beloved oddity - it’s her most concrete imagery, paired with a near-incoherent emotional and sonic fluctuation. it’s campy singles and country ballads and EDM-esque pop back-to-back. and we’ve known for a long time that the instabilities - the wild genre choices and the lyrics reframing the same moments totally differently - are an intentional device reflecting the volatile relationship the album is centred around.

but if RED was an album of contradictions, it was better for it - it captured perfectly the hysterical rambling of a 22 year old recounting a bitter break up. the missing pieces in the half-stuttered story simply showed the true grief in it. the vault tracks fill in the some of the emotional gaps (between Stay Stay Stay and WANEGBT), the sonic gaps (between IKYWT and I Almost Do), the chronological gaps (between All Too Well and 22), but more than that, they confirm what her audience often wondered as we rode RED’s roller coaster - was the hurt at the core of the album actually more crushing than RED’s most dramatic lyrics? was the noxious heartbreak too raw and left on the cutting room floor? this is the question the vault tracks answer. reopening a wound. in 2012 this generation’s heartbreak songwriter wrote her definitive heartbreak album and told us the where, when, who and how. in 2021, RED finally has its why.  the other core difference between the Fearless and RED vaults is that any of the Fearless tracks probably could have gone on the original 2008 release. RED’s, for various reasons (too mature, too unfiltered, too drunk, too humiliated, too painful, too incompatible with Taylor Swift’s 2012 brand image), could never have gone on the original album. the bodies can only be exhumed now because the general public’s perception of both Taylor Swift’s songwriting process and her dating life has changed significantly in the last 10 years. it seems strange from the outside, this retroactive vulnerability, but it also retrofits the album with a closure it maybe never had. the vault tracks put a lid on the narrative; reflective, older and wiser, it’s Taylor Swift’s last confession of damage - just how bad that age (and the power-imbalance in that relationship) was for her. to many, the new context the vault tracks provide is going to feel like petty revisionism. her fans though, who remember Taylor Swift at 22, who have now been 22 themselves, well, you were there, you remember it all.

art imitating life (insp)

@networkthirteen | songs across the eras event

aaaand tweet of the year goes to:

taylor nodded to the original "all too well" lyrics in the lover journal with this shot!